At the dawn of the motor age, many municipalities steadfastly refused to accept the new vehicles on their roadways - passing laws against them for all manner of reasons: the unproven technology, the noise scaring horses, the excessive speed, the smoke, whatever they could come up with out of unreasoned thinking. Same goes for heavier-than-air aircraft; many thought the technology would never reliably work and carry people safely and efficiently. Heck, the use of a radio in a vehicle was once illegal in many states when they began to be incorporated into production. Not to mention that at that same time, 25 miles an hour was considered a hell of a speed. Can you imagine going back in time and telling people that cars in the future will easily attain speeds in excess of 100 MPH, and that we would be regularly driving as fast as 60 MPH with other vehicles traveling in the same and opposite direction at similar speeds without any barrier between - down to sometimes as little as one foot apart. If you were to share this with people from the past, you would surely be rebuked and ridiculed and run out on a rail, same as rabid anti-PRTer's do today.

I suspect the animosity results from a fear that PRT would become yet another government enterprise like regular public transportation: incapable of becoming self sufficient without continous taxpayer subsidy. On this I would agree - I also don't want socialized, subsidized transportation. However, today's road and highway system surely isn't self supporting either, being funded in large measure by tax revenues which are not based in any form by actual road usage (true, gas taxes are use-based, but the larger remainder come from income and property taxes). I'll state it again: when private enterprise can support the construction and maintenance of such a system (you and I as individuals are a part of private enterprise) without taxpayer funding, this kind of concept will flourish - just as it has for the automobile industry in years past.